Sean O'Grady vs John Verderosa (Fun, wild early 80's TV brawl, O'Grady's final fight)

Just went on something of a Verderosa binge, haha. As in I watched all of two of his fights in one day, one where he was stopped by a rising in weight Cornelius Boza-Edwards in the third round of their bout, never having much success in that bout before being knocked down twice and stopped.

Here he rebounds with probably the most notable win of his career, a scrappy early stoppage win over Sean O'Grady, himself then only 24 years old but having already battled through over 80 career bouts spanning all the way back to being light enough to fight two pounds over the bantamweight limit.

Verderosa himself would soon disappear from the sport after having made a few appearances on network television, not notching another noteworthy win after this fight before retiring less than a year later. I wonder why?

Really makes one wonder... was O'Grady something of an underrated fighter who had to call it in early in his career due to a myriad of issues, including burn out... or is it really that easy to put over 80 wins on one's resume in the sport of boxing?

This content is protected

 

Gday Russell, geez you come up with classic fighters from the 70s and 80s. I remeber Johnny " the heat " Verderosa well. He had a fair bit of hype in the boxing mags in the early 80s when I was a teenager. I still remember being a bit surprised reading that Boza gave him a beating. I wasnt as cynical then as now

I just did a bit of googling and found this thread on Boxrec about " the Heat " that I thought you would dig.

[url]http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13017[/url]

 

god the size difference. Like watching two brothers fight.

 

O'Grady was badly fading by the time of this fight. Verderosa was severely limited, himself.

O'Grady quit after this loss and Verderosa lost to the underrated Reyes Cruz (one of the only guys to ever drop Hector Camacho) a few months later, and then retired in early '84 after being stopped by journeyman Kel Robin.

It was a nice action fight but insignificant in the big picture.

 

Boza wasn't rising in weight. Both guys were Super Featherweights/Junior Lightweights at the time. Yes, it was a couple of pounds over the 130 limit, but that was common for non-title fights. Boza did actually rise in weight to fight Lightweight Roberto Elizondo in his next fight.

O'Grady wasn't really underrated or overrated. He got plenty of opportunities and made the best of the chance against Hilmer Kenty after appearing to get hosed against Jim Watt. Yes, he did appear burned out by the time he fought Verdersosa. He had lost to Andy Ganigan and Pete Ranzany in the previous 1.5 yrs. He looked slow and easier to hit than ever against Verdersoa. No, it's not easy to get 80 wins, but truth be told, most of O'Grady's were against tomato cans. He had a few good wins, though, especially the Kenty win.

 

Sean "The Champ" O'Grady was definitely fan friendly. Always gave a good fight.
The Hilmer Kenty win was a legit big time win. He was robbed in Scotland against
the evil Jim Watt.

I miss the Sean from Tuesday Night Fights. Dude always had some funny comments.
"You have to make your opponent want LIKE your jab".

 

One wonders how Sean could lose this after the third. He was abusing Verderosa to the body... but sometimes it's just the fight in the dog that wins.

I also miss Sean's commentary.

 

The Heat, for a brief moment, was a bad ass. He would have given Camacho a good fight.

 

It's a killer nick name if nothing else, right? James Kinchen knew as well...

 

True that.

 

Ever catch any of his other bouts on TV, or even Youtube?

 

Johnny was fast and could hit .. a tough street kid .. he was getting some hype after he surprised Robert Mullins .. he won a few and had a NYC following as a local Staten Island kid .. then he made a huge jump and took a TV fight w Boza who crushed him .. Jonny drowned in drugs .. that was his fall .. I knew him as a young kid back in the dy at Gleason's on 30th street and he was a good guy ..

 

Johnny Verderosa was thrown in the deep end by his incompetent
management like John Collins was with Tony Sibson. Both fights
were like man against boy and both fighters were never the same
after the fights.

 

Who should they have matched both fighters with? I'm unsure of who was available and relevant but not a complete class above.

 

Johnny could have been champ. WBA champion Sammy Serrano ducked him after
Johnny defeated Robert Mullins and NBAF champ Nicky Perez. Not multiple belts like
today and just like Razor Ruddock could have been champ and nobody would fight
him after ko Dokes and the only willing opponent Mike Tyson.
John Collins didn't have the toughness to climb to the top of the MW . If Sibson
hadn't got to him somebody else would have.